Speaking in a number of television interviews this morning, GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul praised the large numbers of young people and Independent voters that supported him in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, adding that their backing proves his campaign can go the distance.

“If you’re looking to bringing new people in, the frustrated young people Obama had, you have to look at my campaign.” Paul told MSNBC’s ‘Today’ show.

“That’s where the enthusiasm is,” Paul added. “So I would say the Republicans would be very neglectful if they say you don’t need the independents, you don’t need the young people. That’s where the excitement is, and that’s where the changes are coming about, and that’s how you would have to beat Obama, so I think there were some very encouraging statistics.”

On Monday, Paul was given a rock star reception by students and young people at a ‘get-out-the-vote’ rally at Valley High School in West Des Moines. The ‘Rock the Caucus’ initiative was intended to increase the participation of young voters in the political process.

“The thunderous applause for Paul rocked the bleachers and caused a crush of media to turn their cameras away from the stage in the middle of the gymnasium to the bleachers where Valley seniors cheered on their first preference among the candidates.” Iowa City Patch noted, adding that the other candidates in attendance, including Rick Santorum, were not treated to as enthusiastic of a welcome.

That boisterous applause did indeed translate into votes for Paul from Iowa’s young people. In fact, of the 18,000 Iowans under the age of 30 who participated in the GOP Caucuses last night, Paul earned the support of 48%, according to data collected by CIRCLE. Rick Santorum came in second with 23%, while Romney gathered just 13% support.

The statistics show that a very substantial 8,800 young people caucused for Ron Paul in Iowa. That means that young voters supported Ron Paul in a far greater percentage than any other age group supported any candidate. Indeed, people under 30 provided Ron Paul with one third of his total votes.

During his interview with MSNBC today, Paul also pointed out that exit polls indicate that roughly half of the Iowans who voted for him were “very conservative,” while the other half were moderates who want “a different approach to personal liberty and some of these foreign expenditures.”

“Conservatives aren’t supposed to believe in big government, they’re not supposed to regulate your private life,” Paul said, adding “The American people are waking up to this.”

Commenting on his strong showing in Iowa, Paul noted “You always can do better, it inspires our people, and it inspires me to do better, but coming in third in essentially a very, very close race if you put the other two together, we’re actually in second place. They were tied for first.”

” I think it’s doing very well to be in the money and getting an opportunity to go into New Hampshire with a good showing.” Paul said.

Watch the interview at this link (At time of writing the MSNBC embeddable video is not working).

In another interview this morning with Fox & Friends, Paul reiterated those sentiments.

“I think my position I hold for limited government across the board is very attractive across the board and in New Hampshire, there are a lot of independents.” Paul said.

The Congressman added, “There are more registered independents than there are Republicans or Democrats. So we’re looking forward to New Hampshire.”